Artists` Group Draws On Public For Help With Projects

October 16, 1987|By Miriam Disman.

Ever since Mayor Richard Daley placed the Picasso sculpture in the Civic Center plaza, Chicagoans have grappled with the concept of public art.

They fought against the stately Miro near the Daley Plaza, laughed at the cartoonlike Dubuffet in front of the State of Illinois Center and followed the hullabaloo over Richard Serra`s ``Tilted Arc`` in New York-relieved that it wasn`t in our town.

But public art isn`t always controversial, nor does it always evoke opinions that it is intrusive or unwanted.

For example, the Chicago Public Art Group (CPAG) works together with community residents to bring art into Chicago neighborhoods. The not-for-profit organization is a coalition of artists producing large-scale public art.

``Every project done through the Chicago Public Art Group is cosponsored by a community organization,`` said former project director Kathryn Kozan, whose most recent art group works are historical markers for the Edgewater community. ``We act as community organizers, getting children and senior citizens involved in the projects, going to the community to get their reponses to designs.``

They`ve been doing that for nearly 17 years. Formerly called the Chicago Mural Group/Public Artworks, the 40 members changed the name last year after realizing that they worked in many media, including reliefs, mosaic and sculpture, as well as murals.

The art media isn`t the only thing that has changed over the years. So has the group`s focus.

``Public art was first conceptualized as a politically radical thing,``

Kozan said. ``It was done in low-income neighborhoods. The idea was to beautify these areas and make a political statement. Now, getting the neighborhood to work together is an important part.``

Colleen Sehy, grants officer for the Illinois Arts Council, said that the group must be well managed to survive for nearly two decades.

``They must be doing something right,`` Sehy said. ``They must have strong management, year after year. The problem with most groups is not what they produce, but mismanagement.``

Good management helps retain the Chicago Public Art Group`s good reputation in the neighborhoods. The second sponsored piece will be installed soon in Edgewater. The first, dedicated last November, is a mural inside the Broadway Armory, 5917 N. Broadway.

The current project, designed by Kozan, commemorates Edgewater`s 100th anniversary with historical markers set into sidewalks on Glenwood and Greenview Avenues between Norwood Street and Granville Avenue.

The Edgewater Community Council, the largest neighborhood group in the area, sponsored Kozan and put her in touch with people willing to work on the project.

``It is good for the neighborhood to work together on a project,`` said Claire Tobin, public relations director for the Edgewater Community Council.

Community participation serves a dual need. Not only does it unite residents, it also helps with a more pragmatic problem: labor costs. Grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Illinois Arts Council and the city`s Office of Fine Arts are the Chicago Public Art Group`s mainstay. Any donated materials or labor lower the group`s funding needs.

``If we feel a group is serving needs no one else is serving, it is definitely in their favor,`` Sehy explained. The Illinois Arts Council supplies one-eighth of the group`s $80,000 annual budget.

``In Chicago there is strong support of public art and it is accepted in this state. Their group is trying to bring that to the community,`` she said. It is often the children of the community who work closely with the artist. Chicago Public Art Group member Lynn Takata likes to work with children. Her prize-winning environmental sculpture, ``Windform,`` at Pratt Avenue Beach in Rogers Park, got its name from neighborhood kids.

``There is peace in working with children,`` Takata wrote in a Chicago Public Art Group newsletter. ``They are fresh and honest in their art. They don`t seem to care about reality, but seem to work out of an intuitive, gut feeling.``

``We involve the neighborhood and communities in the ideas,`` Kozan said. ``This is not art by committee.``